Whatever It Takes
by andreasmandrea
Summary: For five years, now, Pepper’s been waiting for this moment: the moment when he finally breaks down.


**Iron Man: Whatever It Takes****  
**

**By Andreasmandrea**

**Tony/Pepper, movieverse**

**Rated: M**

Warnings: Mature content! Language, angst, adults doing adult things (including a non-con situation), off-screen character death, and general creepiness. But, if you squint real hard, you might see a glimmer of hope at the end.

Disclaimer: Marvel owns everything. I've just twisted it to my own vile ends.

A/N: Okay, this is something I wrote about a year ago for a LiveJournal meme (the RDJ multifandom kink meme), and I am only now getting around to posting it here. Bad me. I've done some minor editing for this posting (it reads slightly differently in places compared to the LJ version), but it's never actually been beta'd, so any infelicities are all mine.

A/N 2: I'm an evil, evil woman and I think there's something wrong with my brain ;)

* * *

She's fallen asleep sitting on the couch again, waiting. Her suit jacket is tossed over the back of the couch, but she still has her shoes on.

Over the last five years, she's frequently been woken by the sound of Jarvis's voice, telling her to hurry, that she is needed. She'll throw herself down the stairs at breakneck speed, ignoring the fact that, yes, she could in fact break her neck running down the stairs like that in high heels. She'll slam through the glass door that Jarvis unlocks for her as she approaches, and sprint to wherever Tony happened to land, calling for Butterfingers or Dummy to bring a screwdriver, a crowbar—an acetylene torch, dammit, if that's what it takes!—to free him from the twisted metal that encases him. Half the time, he's unconscious when she gets him out, and the other half, he loses consciousness shortly therafter.

She'll clean and bandage his wounds, then, staggering under his dead weight, half-carry him into the elevator and up to his bedroom. She'll sit by his bedside, listening to him breathe for the rest of the night, because there's not a hope in hell that she'll ever get back to sleep now. When the light of dawn, reflecting off the waves, starts to ripple across his ceiling, she'll whisper for Jarvis to turn the windows dark, then slink off to the guest bathroom at the other end of the house for a shower, stopping on the way to grab a change of clothes from the closet in her office. He's never indicated that he knows, or guesses, or has even thought to ask Jarvis, and for this apparent blindness, she's indebted.

When Pepper wakes this time, it's to the sound of something shattering.

"Jarvis, is he alright?"

There's an uncharacteristic pause before the AI replies. "Miss Potts, I would recommend that—I would suggest— Mr. Stark is unharmed, and as your services will not be needed for the remainder of the evening, perhaps it would be best if you were to leave. Now."

The hesitancy of his speech, coupled with the abruptness of his tone, sends a chill down her spine. "Okay, that's not funny, Jarvis. What's wrong?" She crosses the room with brisk strides and runs down the stairs, ignoring, or not hearing, Jarvis's voice calling after her.

"Miss Potts—Pepper—please! You don't want to do this!" The usually oh-so-urbane electronically-generated voice is pitched high, and sounds almost, well, frantic.

She reaches the locked glass door to the workroom and pauses to enter her code. No response. She tries again. "Jarvis, my code isn't working." She can't see Tony from where she's standing, but she can hear the sound of metal on metal, and apprehension is beginning to make itself felt in the tightness gripping the back of her neck. "Open the door, Jarvis. This instant."

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Miss Potts. I must insist that you at least return to the main level. The workroom is currently on lockdown."

"Lockdown?!" _What the_ _hell_?"Jarvis, I'm not kidding! Let me in!" No response. "Fine. We'll do this the hard way." She takes a deep breath to steady herself. "Jarvis. Override-protocol 777, authorization P0775, initiate and reset." She hears the hiss of the seal releasing as the now-unlocked door swings open, and she steps into a sudden silence.

"Tony? Are you OK?" The clicking of her heels against the concrete resonates unnaturally, and apprehension starts to turn to anxiety as she receives no answer. "Tony, this isn't the least bit amusing. Answer me." She begins to pick her way through the ever-present debris, among the various large pieces of machinery, between the cars, making a circuit of the area. The frustration continues to build until the anxiety turns to full-blown alarm. "Tony! Where the fuck are you?!"

A low, humourless chuckle cuts through the echo of her shout. "I don't often get to hear you indulge in foul language, Miss Potts." His voice is coming from the far side of his worktable. She finds him sitting on the floor, still wearing the one-piece neoprene jumpsuit he wears under his armour, but his torso is bare, the fabric of the upper half of the suit puddled around his waist and hips. He's leaning back against a huge tool chest, the light from the arc reactor in his chest shining through the forty of scotch propped between his splayed legs, and there's a sledgehammer on the ground next to his hip. Bits of what might once have been armour lay scattered about. The bottle is still three-quarters full; she's obviously gotten to him before he'd drunk himself unconscious, but he is very definitely under the influence.

She holds out a hand to him and reaches down. When he doesn't respond, she bends down and grabs his wrist and forearm. "C'mon, upsy-daisy." She pulls, and he comes up, reluctantly, to stand before her, the scotch bottle clutched in his fist. He appears to be in one piece, and there don't seem to be any bullet wounds or broken bones, and she's grateful, but she's just about run out of patience. "We need to get you into the shower and into bed. Fortunately you aren't too badly bruised, because you've got that photo shoot for the October cover of _Fortune_ first thing tomorrow. The stylist is scheduled to arrive at 8:30 and the photographer—"

"Cancel it." He takes a swig from the bottle.

Her very last nerve, and he's testing its limit. "No, Tony. You don't get to cancel this one; it's been rescheduled twice already and Friday is the deadline—"

"I said, cancel it." His voice is cold and resolute, and his face is carefully blank. He turns and stalks over toward the couch, raising the bottle toward his lips again, but she catches him up, grabbing for the bottle as she spins him about to face her.

"I think you've had enough of that, thank you very much." But she can't move fast enough to snatch the bottle from him as he forces her back, his left hand reaching across his body to grab her opposite shoulder. He raises the bottle over his head and holds it at arms-length behind him. "Tony, you give me that bottle right now!"

"No. You're not my mother, Potts; you don't get to tell me what I can and can't do." He turns away, bringing the bottle down to his mouth to take a long pull. When he raises it again, it's significantly emptier.

That's it. That's all the bullshit she's going to take from him tonight. "No, you're right, Tony—I'm not your mother. I'm the person you pay to make sure your life and your business run smoothly, which they don't do when you act like this. And it wouldn't matter if I were your mother, because you still wouldn't listen to me." She can feel the heat mounting in her face. "There's a reason you still act like this—your parents let you get away with murder when you were a kid, and never bothered to curb your behaviour. They've been gone for more than twenty years and you still haven't managed to grow the fuck up. You're still a spoiled brat, but now it manifests as drunkenness and promiscuity and a total fucking lack of impulse control!"

The bottle sails across the room to shatter against the plasma screen TV, although his face and voice are still impassive. "I think maybe sombody around here has a little too much impulse control. You need to learn to loosen up a bit, Potts. I may be a boozy slut, but you're turning into a frigid bitch."

She slaps him. Hard.

He grabs her wrist, and twist and pull as she might, she doesn't have the strength to break his grip.

"That's not funny, Tony. I won't accept that kind of language from you or anybody."

He grabs her other hand and forces her arms behind her, pinioning her crossed wrists against the small of her back with his left hand as he pushes her backwards against the glass wall. The position makes her back arch uncomfortably, and his eyes slip appraisingly down her body. She's frozen with shock. His eyes are hard and dark and hot.

"I've watched you for years, with your four-inch stilettos and your strict suits, like some kind of expensive corporate domme, keeping me on the leash and making me heel." His voice is a deep silky purr, soft but dangerous, like some kind of big jungle cat. He reaches up behind her to pull the ponytail elastic from her hair, then combs his fingers through the lengths. His hand moves to the top button on her blouse, then down to the second, and Pepper's eyes go wide as she begins to struggle against his grip. The third button slips out of its hole. He's grinding into her, and he's hard against her hip bone.

"Let go of me, Tony." Her voice is shaky. She can feel his fingers slipping down toward her stomach as buttons four and five and six come loose. He pulls the silky fabric away from her and out of the waistband of her skirt. The fronts of her shirt fall open and his hand, large and burning hot, comes up to cup her left breast. His thumb, rough with scars and calluses, rubs along the top edge of her demi-cup bra, then dips in to scrape the nipple with his thumbnail. His head bows and she feels his mouth against the thin lace, suckling through the fabric.

A gasp tears itself out of her lungs and she stills again as a jolt of electricity explodes in her belly, and it feels like a spike has been driven through her, pinning her to the glass. Fear. Fear and anger and the throb of desire that hurts because it's being fed by the fear and the anger, and she closes her eyes. _No. This is not happening, this is not happening, this can't be happening, not like this, not after all this time. This needs to stop_ now.

Instinctively her knee comes up, but her skirt's in the way and there's not enough room and she has no leverage and he's ready for her. He twists slightly and blocks her, then forces his knee up underneath her leg, grabbing the hem of her slim skirt and sliding it up towards her hips. He pushes his knee higher until it's braced against the glass behind her and her thigh is draped over his.

She can hear the seam in the back of her skirt tearing as he pulls it up and around her waist. Her eyes fly open, sudden tears threatening to spill over. "Don't be afraid, Pepper. I'm not going to hurt you. This isn't about hurting you." He slides his hand down to her ass and strokes it, lingering there, caressing. His fingers follow the lace trim on her panties around her hip, down to the tender skin at the angle of her inner thigh. "I don't ever want to hurt you." His voice is scarcely more than a whisper. She feels a finger lightly trace the line of her slit, forward and back, through the fabric and she can't breathe, can't move. Despite the fear, she can feel the tension building, the tightness and tingling in her flesh.

His eyes, dark and dangerous before, are vacant. He's not seeing her, not seeing now. "You've never left me. After all this time, I still have you. You're all I have left. But after what I've—I don't deserve...." The pressure of his finger is becoming more insistent, demanding her attention, but she tries to focus on his words, to decipher what they mean.

A fraction of a second later and he's back behind his eyes, and she's panicking—even though he's slipped the crotch of her panties to the side and his whole hand is stroking her bare, from ass to clit and back, pressing her folds open and making her soaking wet—because this is a Tony she never thought to see again: this is Tony the bastard, the taker, the user, the face of heedless power with an undercurrent of selfish cruelty. This is the Tony that Tony hates and has been trying to redeem ever since he returned from his captivity. This is 'The Merchant of Death.'

"Tony, what the hell hap—"

He slips a finger in and she moans, and hates herself for giving in to the sensation, but then a second finger follows it, and her brain shuts down and she can't form thoughts. Need takes over from fear, and she starts to arch against his hand. She forgets about his other hand clamped around her wrists, her torn skirt, the fact that he has her pinned to the wall, that she never asked for or consented to this. She forgets everything but the want that she's been suppressing for so long.

His fingers begin to piston into her and she tries to thrust against them but finds that she can't, that the leg that Tony has forced up with his knee is hampering her ability to move, and the leg that's supporting her is trembling. Tony, distantly recognizing her distress, frees his hand at the same time he frees her trapped leg. Bending slightly, he wraps his arm around her hips, and bracing her body against his, he lifts her, and carries her to the couch.

Pepper is oblivious throughout the transition. She's confused and dizzy, breathing hard, and she doesn't understand how she ended up on her back, or how her hands have gone from being pinned behind her to being pinned to the couch above her head. She doesn't know what happened to her shoes, or her panties, or her sanity.

All she knows is that her body is pulsing. She arches her back, her neck, as Tony kneels above her, his fingers resuming their destruction of her bounderies. His thumb finds a pivot point on her clit, and his hand, poised on that point, begins to rock into her, three fingers arcing into her, and she's opening to him, her knees coming up and sprawling wide, one foot coming to rest on his back and the other on the back of the couch. She's brimming over, like the river across the flood-plain, liquid and turbulent.

Suddenly her hands are free and Tony's forcing his jumpsuit down over his hips, freeing his erection, and thrusting into her. He pauses, like he's waiting for her to react, to fight him off, but she's too close to the brink again, and all she can do is reach up and tangle her hands tight in his hair, twisting and pulling. He moves then, withdrawing slowly before plunging in again, then again, and again. He pulls her legs up to rest on his shoulders, his arc reactor framed by her thighs, before burying himself to the root, and when he begins to accelerate, she begins to disintegrate, shattering apart on what feels like a molecular level.

And, somehow, his voice cuts through the blood pounding in her ears and the inhuman cries she hears coming out of her mouth, and he's saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and over; she forces herself past the oblivion he's driving them toward in order to see him, to look him in the eye, and she can see that he's back, her Tony is back, and he's weeping and shouting as he comes, as he makes her come.

He collapses on her, still inside her, the edge of the reactor digging into her breasts, and his mouth is near her ear. "I killed him. He fought me and I killed him. He turned on me and I had no choice and I put him down like a rabid dog. He found me in the desert, he brought me home to you, and then he betrayed me and I killed him." His voice is raw and breathless. The knowledge hits her like a brick.

_Sweet merciful Christ. Rhodey._

The clarity she finds astonishes her.

Now she understands. Jim—no, not Jim—War Machine went rogue, and Tony didn't tell her. When he left on this mission, he must have known that he was going out there, under orders, to destroy his best and oldest friend, and he hadn't told her, because Jim was her friend too.

This is punishment, and consolation. She recognizes it now. He's punishing himself with this, trying to drive her away with this violation of her trust, and yet seeking solace in her, in her body, at the same time.

This is shame. She can see it in his body as he pulls out of her, crawls off her and sits back on his heels: the hand that'd held her arms down is over his eyes as he bows his head.

"Tony—" Her voice is gentle, but it seems to jar him, to dislodge him, and he throws himself backwards, tumbling off the end of the couch. He jumps up, looking at her for all the world like an animal trapped by the headlights of an oncoming truck, then turns and runs, taking the stairs three at a time.

"Tony!!" _Shit, shit, shit!_

She can't feel her legs yet, and she has to lay there a moment to collect herself before she can pull herself up to sit on the edge of the seat. Her mind is disturbingly clear; she can look back at the entirety of their relationship, at the events of the past hour, unfolding like a map. She can trace the route they've taken, and she can see the other paths, the side roads and the expressways, that might have led them, more comfortably or scenically, to the same destination. But it was always this same destination they were headed for.

She stands and methodically sheds the rest of her clothing. "Jarvis?" No response. He hasn't come back online yet, although it should happen soon. She turns and walks toward the stairs. Her search is unhurried. She knows he's not going to do anything, not until he hears the front door slam behind her, not until he can verify that she's long gone and never coming back.

She finds him, predictably, in the last place she expected ever to find him again. The Bedroom. For years she has accorded it the capital B. This is the room where Tony-the-bastard took his women, and, occasionally, his men: the room that has the toys and the restraints, the cleverly designed—by Tony, himself—furniture, the bigger-than-California-king bed, the recreational pharmaceuticals in the bathroom cabinet, and the .45 calibre semiautomatic pistol that he's always kept under the edge of the mattress in case things got seriously out of hand. He's fully naked now, on his knees in the middle of the plush carpet, facing the huge picture window that looks out over the ocean. The sky is a pearly gray; it's nearly dawn. His hands are at rest on his thighs, and the gun is on the floor between his knees.

He doesn't turn his head when she enters. He seems calm now, but as she walks around to stand before him, she can see that his beautiful face is twisted by the most awful grimace.

"You need to leave. Now." His voice is a dry rasp.

"No, Tony."

"I'm done. I've destroyed the suit, deleted my personal files, wiped and overwritten my private server's hard drive. There's nothing left. When Jarvis comes back online, I'll instruct him to… notify the authorities. Before I do it." He takes a deep, shuddering breath and looks down at the gun. "It seems appropriate, somehow. Removing the reactor would be too easy, too clean. I don't want easy or clean, and I don't deserve it. I've lived by violence all my life, even before I was old enough to know it. It seems appropriate."

"No, Tony." She's about five feet away when she kneels, and sits back on her feet, resting her hands on her thighs, mirroring his posture.

"My estate, the money, everything, it'll all come to you—assuming you want it, after this." He gestures weakly to the space between them. "The insurance policy is in your name, too, although I don't suppose they're going to pay out, considering." There's a brief glimmer of his accustomed smirk before his face relaxes. He meets her eyes for the first time. "And the controlling interest in Stark Industries is yours. I decided to leave everything to you after Obi—after I realized how much I lo—" Another deep breath. "Shut it down. Dismantle it. Pay everyone off, give whatever's left to charity. Sell the house. Then take my money and build yourself a real life, someplace far from here, where maybe you'll be able to forget—"

"No, Tony."

"Pepper, you've got to leave. If I thought it would do you any good, I'd give you the gun, let you finish it, but it would just hurt you worse, and you'd have to live with it for the rest of your life, see it replay in your head. You don't want any part of this, you don't want to be here for this!"

"No, Tony."

"Don't you understand? I have to do this!" He reaches down for the gun.

"No, Tony." She watches as he raises the gun to his temple, the muzzle angled to inflict the maximum damage possible. Her body tenses, ready to move.

"God dammit, Pepper, get out!!"

"No."

Suddenly the gun swings around to point directly at her, his face a mask of anguish, and she braces herself and relaxes, both at the same time. She can see the climax coming, and she's ready for it.

She watches as the wave breaks across him, the despair submerging him, the gun falling to the floor as he curls in on himself and falls to his side. She moves then, crawling on her hands and knees. She picks the gun up and turns it over in her hand, flicking the safety catch before throwing it across the room. He's shaking violently, his knees pulled up to his chest and his hands clasped behind his head.

He's too heavy for her to be able to pick him up in her arms, so she drapes her naked body over his, holding him together, restraining and cocooning him, and sobbing against his shoulder. Then, finally, he's crying too, his body unfolding, his arms coming up to cling to her, to pull her to his chest. Her arms and legs go around him, one hand holding the back of his head and the other stroking him from shoulder to flank and back again, and she's kissing his face, licking the tears from his cheeks.

For five years, now, Pepper's been waiting for this moment: the moment when he finally breaks down. Five years watching him obsess over stolen weapons and Stane's betrayal and Iron Man and the Avengers; five years watching him destroy his health with too much work, too many injuries, too much scotch, and not enough sleep. Five years watching him build up a wall between himself and his pain. It had buckled, briefly, in the workroom, when he'd been inside her, and she'd clearly seen the truth and her opportunity. Now the wall is shattered.

She kisses him then, on the mouth, her tongue slipping against his as their lips grind together and their teeth bump and his beard abrades her chin and lips. She rolls him on his back and climbs over him, straddling his thighs.

There's no slow build-up this time, either.

She takes his half-hard cock in one hand, squeezing firmly and rubbing her thumb over the head as Tony moans and tries to buck against the restraint of her other hand braced against his pelvis, and it seems to take no time at all before he's fully engorged. Pepper leans forward and slides up his body, reveling in his gasp and hiss as she drags her belly over his shaft then pushes back against his swollen head, taking him inside in one swift motion. She rears back and up, gliding along his length, until he grabs her hips and pulls her down into his thrust. She grinds down on him, taking him deeper, swivelling her hips.

Their eyes meet, and she holds his gaze as they begin to move together, finding their pace. It's so smooth, the movement: they fit like parts in a machine, a Tony Stark-designed machine, and Nature seldom makes anything that rivals the exquisite perfection of a Tony Stark-designed machine. The thought brings a smile to her lips, and she leans forward to capture his mouth in a kiss as she watches his eyes glaze over, and he's whispering her name against her lips, over and over, and then the whisper turns to a shout as the smooth, even rhythm of his thrusts falters and surges and his hands on her shoulders push her back up, changing the angle of their intersection.

She's so involved in watching him fall apart beneath her, shifting and twisting and heaving as she moves above him, that she doesn't realize how close she is herself until it hits her. The machine is out of control, overheating, shuddering, then exploding, and she comes hard and loses herself in it.

When she finds herself, minutes later, she discovers that he's passed out, finally overcome by exhaustion; his face is serene and his lips are slightly pursed, and she can glimpse the little boy he once was, and still is in some ways. She slips out of his arms and walks to the bathroom.

She stands there before the mirror, and hardly recognizes herself. Her skin is flushed, her lips are swollen, and her hair is a tangled mess that's falling in her face. But it's the determination in her eyes that changes her the most.

She can do this, she knows it. She can put him back together, put them back together, because she's the Infamous Pepper Potts, she's in control, and she's a match for any situation. It won't be easy, and it won't be clean. But he belongs to her now, the way she's always belonged to him. She'll do whatever it takes.

When she returns to the bedroom, she kneels down beside him, watching him. He's lying on his side, pale and motionless, but he's breathing. She'd taken a risk, and it'd paid off, but she recognizes, in that moment, how horribly wrong it all might have gone.

"Miss Potts?" Jarvis's voice is soft, and hesitant.

"Jarvis, are you OK?" She experiences a momentary twinge of guilt for disabling him the way she had.

"I'm fine, Miss Potts. My reset was completed with no difficulties or anomalies. How are you? Are you alright?"

She shifts and lies down, curling against his back and wrapping an arm around him. Her hand comes up to rest against his reactor, and she can feel the steady hum and, beneath that, the slow beating of his heart. "We're going to be just fine."

_finis_


End file.
